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Comptoir Sud Pacifique Aqua Motu fragrance review

In honor of my recent return from what was probably my last beach vacation of the summer, today I am wearing Aqua Motu by Comptoir Sud Pacifique. Aqua Motu was originally released under the name Motu in 1992, and I believe the fragrance was reformulated when it was renamed. The notes for the current version are helychrisum, marine notes, lily of the valley, warm sand, and kelp.

I have never been a big fan of marine fragrances, but I adore Aqua Motu. It smells absolutely nothing like the mid-Atlantic beach where I now spend my summer vacations, and truth be told, it probably doesn't really smell like an actual beach anywhere. All the same, in a way that I can't exactly explain, it is an almost perfect, filtered-by-memory olfactory snapshot of the beach in La Jolla where I used to live.

Aqua Motu starts with a blast of ozone, and after that it smells pretty much like a synthetic version of a beach: sea air, salt water, some kelp, and the gnarled little shrubs that grow along the coastline in Southern California. It is a mild fragrance, lightly sweet, and pretty much linear once it settles. What is happily missing is the tourists: there is no suntan oil that I can detect, and no tropical drinks. Just the beach.

I would be hard pressed to defend Aqua Motu against the charge that there are better marine fragrances out there. There probably are. But I have yet to find one that smells so much like the particular beach in my memory. Wearing it is an exercise in nostalgia for me. It is just as well that it is not particularly long lasting, as a little nostalgia goes a long way.

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25 Comments

Welcome back!!! I hope you had a great time and ate lots of crepes. I wish I could add a useful comment but alas – I cannot since I cannot remember if I have tried Aqua Motu or not. Marine fragrances normally do not appeal to me but perhaps next time I am in Aedes I will revisit CSP. Until tomorrow – enjoy!

Wonderful review! I hear that Motu is similar to Montale Sandflowers. Do you find it to be the case?

Actually, I like some fragrances from CSP, especially when I need something light, uncomplicated and fun. My favourite is now discontinued Tiare (Aloha Tiare is not the same). I also like Vanille Banane. They are better priced in France, though.

Hi A! And some Taylor Pork Roll, LOL? I mentioned the TPR to my husband, and last week he & my son ate it at a diner, and now they are begging me to buy it. Thanks for introducing another processed pork product into my household

Aqua Motu is VERY synthetic smelling, and I just can't see you liking it. It is one of those scents that just smells like it was created in a laboratory using no natural materials whatsoever.

Hi R, I smelled Aqua Muto just once & I wasn´t really impressed since I´m – like you – not too much into beach/aquatic fragrances, I like to smell them, but please, not on me! But you can´t do nothing against nostalgia ;D

I find the CSPs a bit flat in general, but sometimes that can also work rather well if you´re in the right mood. I like Coeur de Vahiné & planning on testing Aloha Tiaré tomorrow – I don´t know the original Tiaré – which sounds better than the new one – & I don´t understand why they had to discontinue it. I want something floral & coconutty, but I doubt that Aloha Tiaré will be the right choice…

PBI…Taylor ham, egg and cheese on a hard roll is the BEST. SO New Jersey and SO bad for you but then again- isn't every yummy thing we love to eat? Good luck trying to convince your men to give this up. My Jersey boy thinks the smell of this cooking is better than ANY fragrance on the market

Interesting, I get tons of coconut from Intense Tiare! Susanne Lang makes a vanilla coconut, but nothing with floral & coconut I don't think, and you might also check Attar Bazaar, I think they make several coconut scents. Of course it will all be easier if the Aloha Tiare works out

PBI, C, you should try Aloha Tiaré. Granted, it is not as beautiful as original Tiaré, which is definitely floral and coconutty, but it is well-done. Intense Tiaré also smell more a rich frangipani mixed with gardenia on my skin. I like it as well.

I wrote a nice long message about processed pork products, and helichrysum scent, and your server ate it when it was down today

Too tired to reconstruct that post, but all I can say is stay away from the Scrapple! Don't let anybody there even mention the word in your family's presence. Vile stuff, everything in it but the squeal, as we used to say.

May I make one comment about Attar Bazaar? I *used* to love them. Then you know how you get tired of something and put it away? Well, when I took them out of the drawer after a few years, they had all morphed into a singular sweet strange scent. The base note juice must be used for all of them, and it is just boring.

That said, it is an inexpensive line, and if you're not going to become emotionally involved (sob, sob, my Tunisian Frankincense smells like my Tunisian Amber, etc., sob), then go for it. The perfumer, Hakim Chisti, is a Unani healer, which puts a cosmic spin on them I corresponded with him a few years ago (before the base juice discovery) and he is lovely, have one of his books, too, Sufi Healing, which puzzles me even more about the juice. Oh. Well.

For a nice coconut scent, i use virgin organic coconut oil VOCO. Many health food stores here carry it now. Inexpensive, moisturizing and lovely coconut scent. you can layer it with the top note of choice.

With the Attar Bazaar oils, it's not like they “turned” in the sense went rancid, like a blended perfume oil in a short-life carrier oil can, or oxidized, same case scenario, or was “polluted” by body oils, microbes,

etc. Not that it even oxidized like alcohol perfumes can from the same elements — it's that the base that he uses for all his perfumes became

evident.

I suppose the top notes faded, oxidized (of course this can happen, and I've used perfumes in this condition, nonetheless.)

I was surprised to discover that when they did it revealed a sickly sweet secret — a synthetic base was used in all of them. Guerlain has a base

juice, too, right? To me, it seems like a shortcut for a lazy perfumer. “One accord suits all.”

I guess I was dazzled by his Unani and Sufi background, and expected more in the way of creativity. I really was shocked by the stupid base —

there's no other word for it — stupid, as in not clever, not intelligently designed, just stupid. Stupid perfumes — there's a new theme!

That said — AB oils can be enjoyed for the short haul. I used to love them. Then the stupid base showed through

Oooo… R, Thanks for another timely review. I am going to Malibu and then La Jolla in two days for a wedding. My Doogie Howser best friend is lucky enough to live for half the year in California, curing people, damn her helpful soul. I'm hoping to drive my rented car into LA (always an adventure with me driving) and go to Barneys, so I will have to smell this – along with everything else. I put off trying my Malle samples until this week – I'm a hoarder – and now I desperately need PdT. The website, admittedly for the New York store, says it is sold out! Can this possibly be true? Can I at least get the little travel ones? I haven't even tried the Musc Ravaguer yet! What if they're sold out of everything – the Lutens, the Motu, the Malles – after I have waited months to get to a proper store and they've just extended my credit limit! Agh! Oooo… R, Thanks for another timely review. I am going to Malibu and then La Jolla in two days for a wedding. My Doogie Howser best friend is lucky enough to live for half the year in California, curing people, damn her helpful soul. I'm hoping to drive my rented car into LA (always an adventure with me driving) and go to Barneys, so I will have to smell this – along with everything else. I put off trying my Malle samples until this week – I'm a hoarder – and now I desperately need PdT. The website, admittedly for the New York store, says it is sold out! Can this possibly be true? Can I at least get the little travel ones? I haven't even tried the Musc Ravaguer yet! What if they're sold out of everything – the Lutens, the Motu, the Malles – after I have waited months to get to a proper store and they've just extended my credit limit! Agh!

I was a graduate student at UCSD, and I lived in a grad student apartment for almost no $$$. Those were the days! Later when I was a wage earner, I lived up north in Carlsbad, which at that time was very cheap and I lived about a block from the ocean. I doubt I could afford it at today's prices.

Well, you were right – it really does have that comforting ocean scent with none of the tourist sunscreen. But my first thought when I smelled it was “Don't I already have this?”.

And so today I tried an experiment – Aqua Motu on one arm and Salt Air by Demeter on the other. They are not the same compared side by side, but very, very close! Sisters maybe.

The CSP has a bright lime top note to me, but fades into a sweet ocean scent and stays there. Salt Air starts with alcohol and very synthetic ocean scent (most Demeters have a big alcohol punch in the beginning to me), but dries down into a sweet ocean scent too. Surprisingly the Salt Air lasts longer on the skin (most of the Demeters I've tried fade within a couple of hours into nothing) it's after work and has been since 8 am since I put them on, if I press my nose to my arm I can still smell the Salt Air, but not the CSP.

So, in conclusion: love the Aqua Motu, and next time you order minis from Demeter you should try the Salt Air too!

Gosh, I didn't know there WAS a Demeter Salt Air! There are so many Demeters, I can't keep track of them all. I will try it, the Aqua Motu is expensive, and I really just want a little spritz once in a blue moon.